Everybody Has A Dream by Billy Joel

Writer’s block has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. From the point I started studying the act of musical composition in middle school through college as a music compositions major and now writing this blog for the past seven years, the search for inspiration has been a constant struggle.

In my time sitting in a practice room with a blank piece of manuscript paper in front of me in college and during the times when I can’t figure out anything interesting to reflect on in the past week of my life, I find my greatest inspiration in the people in my life.

“Everybody Has A Dream” by Billy Joel isn’t really about dreams like we normally think about the,. When you hear that phase “Everybody Has A Dream,” you think of career goals, an exotic vacations and some material possession someone hopes to own. That is not what Joel is singing about. He says that his dream is to spend time alone at home with someone he loves. Why? Because the most powerful inspiration he has found in his life is in this person that he loves.

It’s not a coincidence that most of the Billy Joel songs I’ve written about have come from his masterpiece, The Stranger. This album is Joel's greatest work and one of the best albums in the popular music canon.  There’s “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” a magnificent Abbey Road-like reality check for high school students (and the rest of us), “Only the Good Die Young,” a hilarious commentary on Catholicism and the trade-offs we all make and “She’s Always A Woman,” a beautiful statement on the nature of femininity (click on the links to check out these posts).

All of these songs including the other tracks on this album blend together Joel’s 1970s cynicism he views love and relationships with the romanticism he grew up with in the 1950s. Even in his darkest moments Joel is an optimist. He believes in love he just doesn’t believe in all of the crap that gets in the way of love which is why it’s not a big surprise that he ends his masterpiece with “Everybody Has A Dream,” a song of thanksgiving.

“Everybody Has A Dream” has a slow gospel feel to it.  Joel's idolization of Ray Charles comes shining through from the chord progression to the laid back feel of the groove.  Echoing blues lyrics the verses speak of searching for inspiration. The world is so bleak he “relies of my imagination,” to get him through his life. The second verse affirms his believe and optimism “and if a word from you can bring a better day,” holds him up and keeps his hopes alive.

The second verse ends with lyrics that are resigned:

So let me lie and let me go on sleeping,
And I will lose myself in palaces of sand.
And all the fantasies that I have been keeping
Will make the empty hours easier to stand.

The bleakness of these words is followed by a the chorus which states that his dream is simply to be “with you.” He doesn’t want anything else in his life, he just wants to be with the person that he loves. When you find a person that brings you inspiration, the motivation not only to create art, but to get up out of bed in the morning, to believe in yourself, to give life your all and to stand up in the face of adversity, there is nothing that you want in life more than to be with that person.

This song is about the journey, the struggle to find inspiration and the strength in we find each other.  Sharing life with others is what gives life meaning and feeling that power is the greatest dream of all.

The Ties That Bind by Bruce Springsteen

It starts with an alarm. Four forceful guitar chords push you out of the door to confront what you've been trying to ignore.
 
The River’s opening song “The Ties That Bind,” is not a gentle invitation like “Thunder Road,” which opened Born To Run. It’s an urgent, questioning and immediate song that lays out the central theme of Springsteen’s epic The River.


Springsteen’s opening songs for his albums often lay out central themes that frame the entire work. For Wrecking Ball, “We Take Care Of Own,” asks the two defining questions of the album as well as the questions of the presidential election: Who are our own and what does it mean to take care of these people?

“The Ties That Bind,” and The River struggles with different questions. What are the connections between us and how do we they limit and free us to help us through the struggles in our lives? If you think about the songs I’ve already written about from The River they all wrestle with this idea. “Drive All Night,” is about a man struggling with the ties that he feels with a love that has left him.  “Wreck On The Highway,” is about the feeling of love that connects a man to his love in the face of tragedy.  “Fade Away,” deals with the feeling that a bond is being a lost. “The River” describes a feeling of responsibility and commitment in the face of struggle  and “Sherry Darling,” is about a guy who is annoyed at the relationship his girlfriend has with his mother.  (Now I'm not sure how all those songs about cars fits in with this theme, I'll look into that later).

To introduce this theme, “The Ties That Bind” portrays a conversation in which Bruce tries to convince a girl to stop ignoring the reality of her life. In the first verse, he acknowledges that she has been hurt and that she wants to get away. She is angry and resentful and is “walking blind,” to the ties that bind.

In the second verse, he continues, telling her that her “cheap romance,” is meaningless. She thinks that “walkin’ tough,” is a sign of strength, but the true challenge is facing up to her responsibilities.

In the bridge, Bruce argues that he would rather “feel the hurt inside” than feel “the emptiness your heart must hide.” The last verse continues this idea as Bruce says that he would be with her and “stand in time.”

"The Ties That Bind," faces this tough conversation with a joyful and energetic rock groove.  It's more garage band than "epic wall of sound."  It's harkens back to a simpler type of rock song but with themes far more complex and challenging than most songs that share its structure and style.

"The River" is the title track of the album and is a powerful examination of the ties of love and responsibility between two people.  "The Ties That Bind," brings us into this idea and asks us to question how we face our own reality and begin thinking about what are the ties that bind that we ignore but can never truly escape.

Bruce is right.  It is better to feel the pain in life with someone else than to run away from one's responsibilities alone.  It's a harder path but it draws us together to the people that we love.  This is worth the hardship.

The ties that bind sometimes get in our way, sometimes they feel like a burden.  Sometimes in life we pull away from these ties and at other times we let them draw us closer to others.  It's a constant struggle but like these bonds, this struggle defines who we are and the choices we make every day.  

Wreck On The Highway by Bruce Springsteen

“Wreck On The Highway,” the closing song on Springsteen’s epic The River album describes what it means to love somebody in a unique and unexpected way.  Much like the Barenaked Ladies’ beautiful “Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel” (which I discussed in this earlier post), “Wreck On The Highway,” a car crash become a catalyst for the expression of true love, without using the word “love.”

Both of these songs take the challenge of describing love, not through metaphors, or poetic devices, but rather through events that happen in life. This requires subtlety, carefully constructed lyrics and truly remarkable performances. “Wreck On The Highway,” blows this challenge out of the water.



“Wreck On The Highway,” has very simple lyrics. Springsteen who is known for amazing poetic imagery lets the music set the mood and speaks not as a poet, but rather as a simple man.

The protagonist comes across a wreck. There’s a man, lying on the side of the road who asks for help. An ambulance comes and takes the man away. As the main character drives away from the wreck, he imagines a girlfriend or a young wife receiving the news that her loved one died.

At this point in the song our protagonist imagines what this tragedy means to people who may have loved this man in the wreck. This isn’t something people thick about when they are teenagers or even when they are early adults. Immaturity narrows our focus on ourselves so we don’t think about how things effect others. One of the things that draws us out of this bubble is having someone in our lives that we truly care about.

To love someone, to truly be in a meaningful relationship is to understand that one’s actions resonate with people who love you. This man has reached this point. It is this imagination that leads us to think that there is something deeper going on in this man.

The last verse is one of the most beautiful that Springsteen has ever written.

Sometimes I sit up in the darkness
And I watch my baby as she sleeps
Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight
I just lay there awake in the middle of the night
Thinking 'bout the wreck on the highway

What is he thinking when he watches her sleep? Does he fear a loosing her? Is he grateful for the time they have together? Is he concerned that one day he will cause her pain, or has he already made a mistake that caused her to be hurt that he regrets? We don’t know, Springsteen, doesn’t lay it out for us, so it forces us to wonder and project our own feelings on these lines.

It may seem strange to think of a tragedy when you hold someone you love, but think about it for a minute. Whenever something sad happens, whenever we feel pain, we long to be held by that one person in our lives that provides us with meaning and comfort, the one person who completes us.

Sadness and fear are like every other emotion. They are meant to be shared with people we love because when we go through these emotions with other people, they give these emotions meaning.

After the length of a double album, we expect a long outro to “Wreck On The Highway,” but it seems to end before before we get a chance to reflect on the lyrics. This is jarring but so is seeing a wreck on the highway. Thankfully, Springsteen adds a little bit more music after the pause to give us a little bit more time, like that the one more moment we wish we could have had with someone we've lost.

“Wreck On The Highway” challenges us to think about what it truly means to know love and share love with others. 

I'm Goin' Down by Bruce Springsteen

There’s a lot of reasons that I want to be like Bruce Springsteen when I grow up. One of the main reasons is because he has so much fun doing what he loves.


Seriously, look how much fun he’s having during the last chorus. You can’t fake that kind of joy.

Watching this recent performance of “I’m Goin’ Down” it’s clear that he is having the time of his life. Springsteen has many different songs that cover so many different styles and watching Springsteen perform this album cut from Born In The U.S.A. reminded me of another layer of this amazing artistry.

“I’m Goin’ Down,” is a simpler song than “Thunder Road,” or “The Rising.” It has a simply four chord pattern that is repeated through out the song and the melody, while catchy doesn’t have a lot to going on. Sometimes Springsteen channels Bob Dylan, sometimes he channels Motown artists like Smokey Robinson. With “I’m Goin’ Down,” Springsteen is challenging The Beatles when they first came to America in 1964.

You can hear it in the structure of the melody and even see it in in the way Springsteen bobs his head side to side just like Paul did back in the day.  There’s an innocent joy in this song that is reminiscent the youthful joy that The Beatles came across the ocean with and inspired many American including Springsteen himself to be a musician.

The lyrics of “I’m Goin’ Down,” are kind of . . . down. He’s singing about a passion that has fizzled. There’s no turn around in this song or resolution. It just goes on and on about how things aren’t going very well. So what is Springsteen so happy about?

This song isn’t one of those “let’s sing a happy song with sad lyrics to deal with the pain” –songs. It’s more like “hey, there are these issues, but I’m naive enough and young enough to think that my pleas will turn you around, because chances are you are actually still into me, but you’re just playing a game, right?" It’s capturing a level of innocence and hopefulness, which from an older perspective seems ludicrous, but hey, that’s what it means to be young.

Another way you can look at this song is a man getting payback and stating “look, at what I used to do for you, if you’re not careful, you will loose this amazing man you see before you.” “My kisses used to turn you inside out,” has a sly wink, which makes this song feel more like a flirtatious game then a reflection of a relationship falling apart.

It’s so remarkable how a song can feel so good and be about something that doesn’t seem that happy. In some ways, this dichotomy makes the song even more joyful. There’s dirtiness and there's tension.  It’s not an ideal love, it’s something you can relate to. All relationships ebb and flow and we fight to stay in the game because of how good we know it can be.

That’s really what this song is about. It’s about that feeling that is lost but brings us so much joy in our memory that we can’t help but smile when we think about it even when we are faced with sadness.

If I Could Turn Back The Hands Of Time by R. Kelly

Conversation between me and Diana as we were sorting through storage boxes:

D: Do you want this cd?
K: prob not. . . Wait a sec. . . OH MY GOD! Yes!!
D: Are you sure? I mean it's not . . .
K: Give it to me NOW!.

The CD in question was “Now That’s What I Call Music 3.”

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, the “Now That’s What I Call Music” was a series of compilation CD’s of current popular songs. If you watched MTV and VH1 regularly like I did growing up, you were used to seeing television commercials for these CDs ALL of the time.

Believe it or not the series is still going on and is up to number 43. While the television commercials don’t seem as prevalent, someone out there must still be buying these things.

After listening to this CD over the past week.,I’ve come to the some conclusions about the state of pop music as represented by this CD in 1999.

Enrique Iglesias is shockingly sensual. “Bailamos” is absolutely astounding in its level of “heat.”


I still don’t care about what Limp Bizkit will do for the “Nookie.” This song is all immature bravado and doesn’t describe any real substance.


Oh, K-Ci & Jojo, I believe that you want to hear that it’s real.


And then there’s R. Kelly – Mr. “Trapped In the Closet, went on trial for doing things that I get creeped out even thinking about thinking about, wave around arms like just weird conducting that choir in the end of the “I Believe I Can Fly” video.”


“If I Could Turn Back The Hands Of Time” was not a huge hit for R. Kelly. However this song, a beautiful mixture of “Unchained Melody” and 1970s soul is a powerful, emotional and touching ballad. R. Kelly’s schmaltz can be a bit much and it definitely feels melodramatic but this is an example of when this was done right.


The sentiment in this song of regret is instantly relatable (unlike the call for needing a city like Gotham).


Instead of projecting a “playa” image, R. Kelly portrays a man who feels at a loss, who has weakness and surprisingly vulnerability. The reflections that R. Kelly makes are simple but insightful. For example, “You had enough love for the both of us” is a powerful realization of how much his partner had to give and how little he gave. Also this describes how blind he was to the blessings in his life.

What really feels timeless about this song is that if Jimmy Ruffin sang this song in the 1960s or Adele sang it right now, it would be a hit.

R. Kelly through his career sometimes seems to have become a caricature of himself. It’s easy to forget that behind the bravado and the controversy, you have a great singer who understands his place in popular music. As “Now That’s What I Call Music 3,” takes me back to another time in my life, there’s some things that I’m glad I forgot about like “Nookie,” but others things I’m glad I rediscovered.

Trayvon’s “American Skin (41 Shots)” by Bruce Springsteen

When Bruce Springsteen first performed “American Skin” he was widely criticized for performing a song about the shooting death of Amadou Diallo. On February 9th, 1999,Four police officers shot at him 41 times, (19 that actually hit Amadou) as he reached into his pocket to take out his wallet. The police offices were acquitted of any crimes as discussions of racial profiling and police brutality spread across America partially due to Springsteen bringing attention to this event.



Days after George Zimmerman was acquitted of in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, Springsteen performed “American Skin,” dedicating it to Trayvon, “We’ll send this letter back home for justice for Trayvon Martin.”

While the deaths of Diallo and Martin are different in many ways "American Skin" remind us of the underlying reality for both of these men that as Springsteen sings “You can get killed for living in your American skin.”

As President Obama so eloquently reflected, there is a tension between the statistics about black males and our racist reactions.



More than ever we need to work to understand the context of what our different skins mean and how they define for each of us what it means to be American. Events in our culture stick to us differently. For me the Japanese internment camps during World War II are probably more forward in my thoughts about America than for other people, which has to do with the fact that I’m Asian.

Obama’s explanation of the context of people’s reactions is critical for us to consider because as much as we have one unified American experience, what sticks with us, what shapes our perspective has to do with how we form our identity as much as how society views us.

On one side we have outrage and disappointment that a country that seems so progressive has failed to bring justice. On the other side are arguments that Trayvon was a “punk,” that the justice system followed it’s own terms (which somehow makes this verdict okay), and that Zimmerman’s reactions were somehow justified.

We shamefully can’t even bring up gun control with this case. No police officer would have used their gun the way that Zimmerman did on Trayvon because of their training. This gross misuse of a gun puts into question the validity of having a hand gun as a self-defense tool, the training that must be required before owning a gun and the people in our society refuses to stand up against the gun companies and to each other to do what is right.

Summer weekends bring death to the streets of Chicago, mostly on the Southwest side of the city. It makes the local news but doesn’t make national headlines. I’m sure if one person was shot that looked like my wife, it would. “American Skin” will continue to echo as we struggle to deal with issues of racism in our society. 

There is this idea that we can't slide back to the racism of the past, that racial harmony is a trajectory that America will inevitably reach.  This assumption is dangerous.  Ignorance, scapegoating, racism and inequality are not things of the past.  We must not only celebrate the progress our country has made but also acknowledge that this progress came from very hard work that we need to continue.

Obama is right.  The younger generations are much better at being open and accepting than the older generations.  So it on us to not pass on the worst of ourselves and to let the younger generations challenge our assumptions and our views of the world.  We can do better, we must do better so that the American skin that each of us wear is not a curse but a blessing. 

Piano Man by Billy Joel

All iconic artists have a signature song.  Elton John has “Your Song,” Springsteen has “Born To Run,” and Billy Joel has “Piano Man.”

One of the things that many American, and some artists whoa re not American have done with a their music is to define the American experience. Billy Joel does this in a similar way that Springsteen does with working-class characters and deep nostalgia from times that came before while also acknowledging the flaws of the past, like Joel sings in “Keeping The Faith,” “the good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”



Joel’s music has always had a harsher edge and a more cynical almost punk rock aesthetic. “It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me,” sounds bitter and “She’s Always A Woman,” has a strange almost sarcastic feeling to it (which I wrote about in this earlier post).

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Joel’s signature song has a similar feel. “Piano Man,” is a song about dreams unfulfilled. It’s about people dealing with regret and trying to escape their the reality of their lives. When described this way, “Piano Man,” seems like a bleak and joyless song, but when you listen to it, you realize that it is something very different.

I’ve never been to a bar that had a piano man like Joel playing at it, but he paints such a vivid picture of the bar that you feel like you are part of that world. There’s depth in all of the descriptions of his characters that help you imagine deeper stories like in a good fantasy story.

The whole song swirls and rallies around the song itself. The chorus is the chorus of the people in the song and as we sing along to this song we become one more person sitting in that bar, with all of our own worries and fears, simply wanting to be lost in a song.

In many ways this is what Joel has done his entire career.  When I watched him perform in Wrigley Field last summer, I could feel how much he wanted his music to be a participatory event and how much that he wanted to take the audience away.

Joel is much more of a realist and his bitterness and anger reflects the “angry young man” in all of us in ways that pop music from previous generations did not. He worked through the pessimism of the 1970s and the cynicism of the 1980s with a song in his heart.

We demand the piano man to sing for us, because we need him to forget about life a while. He put into song the desire we all have for escape and provides that escape at the same time. “Piano Man” is the definition of great pop song. It’s specific enough to relate to our own lives but ambiguous enough to appeal to mass audiences. It melds styles of music together in subtle and unexpected ways and as good as it feels to listen to, it reaches a higher level of meaning when you let go and sing along.

Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway) by Billy Joel

At the crossroads of science fiction and rock music you have the good:



 . . . the bad:



Yes, I am categorizing this song as “bad.” You want to make something out it?

Then there’s the um. . .



Science fiction and rock has melded into some amazing musical creations and some  painful musical atrocities. Rock music like science fiction often works as a commentary on society reflecting the future of as a way to examine the present. So while throughout rock music there have been some misguided attempts at melding these two genres, there have been some really amazing ones like "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)."



After spending time in Los Angeles and becoming disillusioned by the music scene and the culture there, Billy Joel returned to New York. He marked this by the release of his album Turnstiles. This album featured songs reflecting this move like “Say Goodbye To Hollywood,” and odes to his hometown like “New York State Of Mind.” This album ended with “Miami 2017,” which portrayed a despotic post-apocalyptic New York, where people had fled to Miami for refuge.

Joel wasn’t that far off. The New York of 1976 was not the Disney Store-Giuliani cleaned up time square that we know now. It was the Taxi Driver, crime-ridden and about to default city that many viewed as a hopeless center of sin.

Loving a city that many disregarded as falling apart, Joel responded with “Miami 2017” singing about watching the city burning down, but continuing to play a concert regardless of the destruction. This was a song about how that even in the apocalypse of iconic buildings and the sinking of Manhattan itself, the spirit of the city lived on through a concert that would not stop.

When the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11 occurred, people became cautious to show images of these buildings and the destruction of New York. Instead of going along with this, Billy Joel proudly performed “Miami 2017,” at The Concert For New York.



While his words seemed less prophetic and more like a reflection of actual events, when he sang “we went right on with show,” it meant something to the city and the rest of the country.
instead of mourning the fact that Joel and all of New York witnessed 9/11, the song reminded all of that we are survivors and to take pride in living through this experience.

Through the clouds of dust there’s the music and the spirit that no destruction could silence.

Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners

The year I was born was a crazy year in music. There was Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Working for the Weekend” by Loverboy, and Willie Nelson’s “Always On My Mind” (I’ve written about all of these songs, just click on the song title.” These three songs have maintained status in pop culture in film and television commercials (Soprano’s, Zoolander, jeans commercials).



One song that really deserves a resurgence in pop culture is one of my favorite songs from my birth year “Come On Eileen.”



There’s so much that is weird about this song in such an awesome way. First off, Dexy’s Midnight Runners is named after the drug Dexedrine, and midnight running was the idea about dancing all night when using that drug. With this kind of band name you expect some kind of club, synthesized dance music. Instead you get a unique folk-inspired song, full of heart.

This song doesn’t really sound anything like the other songs that came out that I mentioned earlier in this post. Well none of those songs sound at all like each other which is one year 1982 was such an incredible year in music. “Come On Elieen,” has musical allusions throughout its structure from the opening violin playing the irish folk song “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” to mentioning of Johnnie Ray a 1950s singer-songwriter.



“Come On Eileen” kicks in with a myriad of instrument including a piano, accordion, trombone and saxophones and violins. Nothing about the groove feels like something that would chart on a the U.S. Billboard charts but it became a number 1 hit, sandwiched between “Billie Jean” and “Beat It,” by Michael Jackson.

The lyrics are often misunderstood.  Even when I follow along with them its still hard to understand what is being sung. Basically it’s a reflection on the previous generation and being amazed at how much this girl Eileen has grown up. The chorus, which I grew up thinking, was:

At this moment,
take off everything,
You in that fress
Oh, it falls on your breast,
Oh you’re dirty,
Oh, come on Eileen

Is actually a much sweater sentiment:

At this moment you mean everything,
You in that dress,
My thoughts I confess,
Verge on dirty ,
Oh, come on Eileen

There’s an amazing and sudden change in the groove into the chorus that happens with a shift in the meter dropping two beats that you expect to hear. Then there’s one of the most unusual musical devices in pop music an accelerando. Pop songs rarely speed up and slow down. There’s only a handful of examples when this happens. The moment when “Come On Eileen,” slows down and slowly grinds ups up makes you feel like you are hearing a live recording of the band.

I remember dancing to this song in college, twenty years after it came out and feeling the dance floor slow down and pick up towards the end of this song. It’s really a beautiful musical moment that is rarely experienced in pop music.

“Come On Eileen,” is a beautiful song with so much spirit and heart. There’s a reverence to the past in its words and music and also an innocence that makes this song shine like the  smile of a close friend.

Let’s bring this song back to the center of pop culture. It’s well-deserving of the attention and primed for a new generation to misinterpret the lyrics as they dance along to the sweet sounds of Too-ra-loo-rye-aye.

She Drive Me Crazy by The Fine Young Cannibals

Before I knew the difference between falsetto and chest voice, I knew there was something weird and kind of awesome about “She Drive Me Crazy.” Rarely does a singer make as a dramatic shift between singing styles as Roland Gift does in this 1988 hit.



While this switch from head voice to chest voice is notable, there are many other things about this song that are memorable. There’s the sparse but fitting instrumental background, the incredible hook and the overall “you can’t help but smile,” feeling you get when you hear this song. If you looked at the lyrics by themselves, they would seem a little dark. The first verse is about a feeling that he can’t control and feeling tortured by the fact that he is waiting for her. The lyrics of obsession continue in the second verse and by the third verse he states, “I can’t make it, on my own.”

The weird thing about love is that these feelings that seems like torture make you feel like you are alive in ways that you could never imagine which you feel when the words are placed to the music.

Part of the way that you know you are in love with someone is the fact that you don’t feel like you are in complete control of your thoughts or your feelings. This kind of drives you (and often your friends) crazy because you really can’t help but talk about this person. Yes, this can get a little annoying sometimes but more that this feeling of craziness is accompanied with a kind of joy that only comes from that first burst of love.

Than there’s Kermit’s version. . .



This verson plays the verses against the chorus, which flips this song into a conversation. Wait a second, is that what the original song was going for? Are the Fine Young Cannibals portraying a person with multiple personalities who is literally driving himself crazy?

Mind = blown.

Man, who isn’t in this video? Was that Dick Clark and Little Richard? Ok, anyways. Fine Young Cannibals created one of the greatest feel good rock songs of all time. While some may think of them as a one hit wonder, they had some other great songs like “The Flame” which my brother and I spent a couple months in high school believing was the greatest song of all time.

Father of Mine by Everclear

“The classic parent attitude with a kid is like, ‘I brought you into this world, I gave you life.’ . . . I just think completely opposite, my kids gave me life."

-Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Some say that we are destined to become like our parents when we become parents ourselves. This is a scary for many people, even those who have great parents that they love.  The things we hate about our parents are the things we don’t like about ourselves and in becoming a parent we are forced to face these insecurities.

Thankfully for kids all over the world, people can fight that destiny and become better than their parents when they step into that role. The film The Other F Word takes a look at punk rock musicians dealing with fatherhood.



At first this film simply seems like a comical look at seeing guys with tattoos deal with doing ordinary things like helping their daughters pick out clothes for the day. What is revealed however is that this is a group of men defying destiny to become great dads.

Punk is a genre of music that takes the rebellious themes of rock music and amplifies them with anger, hatred and an uncomfortable rawness. A lot of these emotions come out of the fact that these musicians had absent, abusive or emotionally distant fathers. This bitterness and anger led to their music but also their choices as fathers.

Art Alexakis of Everclear is featured playing “Father of Mine,” in this film as he tells the story of the relationship he had with his father.



This song tells the story of his father, leaving Art and his mother at a young age. Art fills out this story in the film talking about sexual abuse he suffered as a kid and the feelings of never being sane or safe which he sings about in the song.

You can hear anger in this song but there’s more than that. There’s a sadness and a determination as he sings towards the end, “With a child of my own . . . I swear I’m not going to let her know all the pain I have known. “ It’s seems somehow tragic but also triumphant as Art unpacks his feelings but then turns this frustration and hate into love.

The most powerful thing about "Father Of Mine," and The Other F Word is that shows us that no matter what we are born into, we are not destined to repeat the sins of our fathers.  It's not easy but its possible.  Abandoned children can become great parents, outcasts can contribute to our society by raising great children and anger can become love. 

Anything Like Me by Brad Paisley

Before Brad Paisley was known for being an accidental racist all over the blogosphere, he was known by his fans and critics as one of the most creative and important forces in country music as well as mainstream popular music.

Paisley is one of the best representatives of country music paying tribute to his country music forefathers in songs like “This Is Country Music,” while composing clever songs about modern topics like “Online.” While Paisley’s music is full of humor his most powerful works are about his personal life.

I don’t really remember “Anything Like Me,” from Paisley’s 2009 album, American Saturday Night. It wasn’t until I heard this song on his greatest hits collection Hits Alive did the song really strike a chord with me (if you’ve been keeping up to date with this blog, the reasons to you will be obvious).



The opening of this song is exactly how I felt when I found out Diana was pregnant. You better believe when we found that it was boy, there were tears in our eyes. It wasn’t so much that we were happier that it was a boy, it just made it seem that much more real.

Brad works this his feelings of fear knowing that this boy will do the same things that he will which were a pain for his parents. My feelings of apprehension had to do with the fact that I wasn’t sure that I could father a boy.

After unpacking these feelings and my ideas about manhood partially through my “To Be A Man,” posts I’ve become more comfortable about raising a son. I’m still worried about it, but I’m beginning to see that I’ll be just fine.

Paisley lovingly sings about all of the things he thinks his son will do which he did, which will lead to him, probably like his own dad, loosing his temper. He envisions his son growing up and the little things he does wrong as being exactly that: little things.

My son may not play football but if he’s like me, he’ll have a first piano recital, get hooked on video games, read too many comic books and will fracture his elbow before a school dance but got to that dance anyways (that actually happened).

Paisley sings about this as “payback,” but the love and peace in his voice makes it seem like that he is looking forward to all of this.  It is comforting to know that while fatherhood is overwhelming, it is something I am blessed to get to experience.

The last verse is one of the most incredible turnarounds I’ve heard in a song. So far the things that the son will do if he’s anything like Brad have mostly been things that cause difficulties in life.  In the bridge, Brad sings about his son loving him (and hating him) and leaving the house. He’ll seem like he wants to go but that he’ll cry leaving home. Brad closes the songs singing “he’ll be alright, if he’s anything like me.”

This ending puts this whole idea in perspective. It’s about being confident in yourself and knowing that since you turned out okay, therefore your son will too. If my son gets the worst parts of me, he’ll also get the best parts as well and that’s a pretty amazing thing to think about.

I don’t have the confidence that our kid will be alright if he’s "anything like me." I know that it’s silly at this point in my life to feel a lack of confidence, but right now there’s a lot of things swirling around in my life. Especially with this fatherhood stuff, there’s just so much that is going to be new.

I told Diana recently that I have no doubts about her ability to be an amazing mother, but that I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle fatherhood. She told me that she has never doubted my ability to handle difficult situations. You know what? I guess my son will be alright because if he’s anything like me he’ll have a partner in his life like Diana who will believe in him in ways beyond his own confidence and his imagination.

Accidental Racist by Brad Paisley (feat LL Cool J) - Part 2: The Hope

Now let’s talk about what everyone is focusing on: the lyrics.

I don’t think a kid who buys a Lynard Skynrd t-shirt at Target has any idea about the cultural baggage that is attached with the Confederate flag on that shirt. I also don’t think most kids when they where baggy pants have any idea what message that sends people. It’s not just kids, most adults have issues understanding the messages they are putting across.

Should we know better? Yes, but do we? Not always.

Brad offended a guy with his t-shirt when he went to Starbucks. It wasn’t his intention. But he realizes that maybe there’s something wrong and instead of blowing off this “can of worms” he takes it as a opportunity to have a conversation.

The chorus is all about understanding and accepting who you are which is the first step in having any kind of meaningful dialogue about race. He is Caucasian, and he’s from the south. He has no personal responsibility for slavery, Jim Crow laws and the sins of people who came before him. This line of thinking sometimes leads to people not taking responsibility for the past but Paisley does, acknowledging that they are still “picking up the pieces” and that he is torn between “southern pride and southern blame.”

Atticus Finch had it right. You have a walk a mile in another person’s shoes but you can’t in practice. I will never know what it’s like to walk down the street as a woman and I will never know what it’s like for my son to be mixed-race. We can try but we’ll never know and Brad points this out in the second verse.

LL’s angle is different. He brings up some stereotypes and how he thinks that we shouldn’t judge too quickly because of the clothing someone's wears. Like the point Brad makes in the chorus, he says that he wasn’t there during Sherman's march but that he also takes responsibility for the pre-judgment that he makes.

Then LL says that he wants to buy him a beer to have a chat to clear the air. Some people have criticized this line for trivializing racial issues with such a simplistic solution. LL isn’t saying that all issues can be solved this way but some can. And reaching with a gesture of good will to someone who is projecting things that you are uncomfortable with like the confederate flag is an enormous and powerful way to make progress.

At the end Brad and LL throw lines back and forth at each other. They aren’t trying to equate chains of slavery with gold chain necklaces or do-rags with the confederate flag. They are explaining their perspective. Some of this isn’t pretty and some of it is a little unsettling but that’s okay. “RIP Robert E. Lee, but I gotta thank Abraham Lincoln for freeing me. . . ” can be interpreted as a loaded or simply an acknowledgement of differences which must be acknoledged in order for a dialogue to be meaningful.

What’s concerning is that these two artists Brad Paisley and LL Cool J did something that was brave and important and instead of being praised they got heat.

My son is coming into this world in about a month. He’s coming into a society where we aren’t comfortable talking about racial issues and we don’t feel able to address the tensions within ourselves. Brad and LL bucked the trend through trying to make a world where we can move forward without forgetting the past.  Through acknowledging the tensions and the the misunderstandings we can find common ground to reach a higher level of shared humanity.

Even though this song may be mediocre, the spirit of what Brad Paisley and LL Cool J expressed in "Accidental Racist," gives me hope for my son, myself and all of us.

Accidental Racist by Brad Paisley (feat LL Cool J) - Part 1: What The Critics Got Wrong & The Music

Somewhere between the people in our society who don’t think racial issues are clear and present in our society and the people who fight racial issues as a war are the rest of us well-intentioned and self-aware individuals who do the best we can to understand each other.

Brad Paisley and LL Cool J are two of these people.

I understand why “Accidental Racist,” has received criticism. People are uncomfortable talking about race, especially when the discussion is as honest and up front as in this song. While I’ve read some well thought-out analyses of this song, most people are missing the mark and the point.


I’m going to steer away from addressing critics of this song but I got to say a couple things in reference to the many criticisms Brad Paisley and LL Cool J have received for their work together. These are two musicians reflecting how they feel about an issue in their lives. They are not sociologist, they are not experts in racial relations, they are musicians. Their responsibility is not to address and unpack the complex racial issues in America.

Much of the criticism of this song comes from people who have little expertise in the hip-hop or country genre and many of these people are not even experts in music. Whenever something in our society stirs up controversy it’s interesting how many people jump into the fray to criticize something they don't consume or understand. It’s like the person protesting a video game for being violent when they don’t play video games themselves or another person they will never buy a Tiger Woods product when they never bought his merchandise to begin with.

If you take away the critics who:
      1. Take the lyrics out of context
      2. Place inappropriate responsibility on Brad Paisley and LL Cool J’s shoulders
      3. Don’t understand the genre of music they are addressing or the nature of pop music itself

  . .. you aren’t left with a lot of legitimate critiques. Think about the larger context, stick with what you know and don’t jump on the criticism bandwagon.

First off, let’s take a look at the musical part of this song. It’s not great but it’s not horrible. Melding rap into other genres can be tough. Springsteen it tried with “Rocky Ground,” it was okay but again wasn’t great.



Brad leads in with this slick and bluesy guitar licks. The slow pace allows for a level of reflection and Brad as he usually does a nice job moving through simple but interesting harmonies. After varying through more sung and then spoken lines the chorus opens really nicely. LL Cool J’s verse isn’t as dynamic as other ones. My favorites LL Cool J verse is at the beginning of this song “Curious.”



His verse doesn’t have the swagger or aggressiveness that we are used to with LL but he moves through the verse with skill has some interesting rhymes (“gangled, DJango,”) while weaving historical context of Sherman’s march. Maybe it’s because we’re not used to rap being calmer, but it doesn’t feel right. Part of it is that rap over a non-hip-hop beat doesn’t sit well in the ear. It’s not a logical thing, but it doesn’t feel like it fits.

Musically this combination feels a little awkward when LL ad-lib's towards the end. I’m not sure what would have made it better but maybe a musical compromise or a hip-hop beat coming in during a break down would have smoothed it over a little. Regardless it’s a really pretty song but it lacks a certain energy and momentum that Paisley and LL characteristically have in their music.

It's hard for people to divorce their musical tastes from the lyrical content.  If you're not a fan of country music, you are going to be turned off from this song regardless of the lyrics.

Next week I'm going to analyze the lyrics which are where most of the scorn is being directed.  In the mean time, really think about what they are saying.  Don't just hook onto a single phrase.

We limit ourselves in racial discussions if we don't dare to look deeper not only into what is said but also how our reactions to these words reflects our own feelings and insecurities. 

Always On My Mind by Willie Nelson

You know one of your friends is really into someone they like when they bring that person up in conversation all of the time. If you’ve been on the other side of this you know what it’s like to have someone always on your mind.

Like the first burst of emotions when you fall in love, the intensity of your thoughts about this other person wanes over time but it never really disappears. What happens after years in being in a relationship with someone isn’t that they leave your thoughts, it's just that you get so used to them being in you thoughts it becomes normal to think of the them all of the time.

“Always on My Mind,” is one of the most famous and beautiful love songs in popular music. It’s as much an apology song as a statement of commitment. Brenda Lee first recorded it in 1972:



This song was a moderate success but it was Elvis Presley’s cover the brought this song into prominence:



My introduction to this song was through Willie Nelson:



Brenda Lee is a fantastic singer but what works with Nelson’s and Presley’s version is the fact that they both exude this feeling of regret and heartache. This song isn’t an open apology. It’s not saying: “I did all of these things wrong,” instead it goes with “maybe. . . I did something bad.” That’s a big deal for this character in this song.  You hear that in the desperate voice of Elvis in his later years and the beat-up and battered voice of Willie Nelson.

Willie Nelson really owns this song. It feels like songs that he wrote for himself. There’s a conversational feeling to the verses that opens up into a beautiful chorus. There’s desperation, a feeling that this is the last attempt to bring this person back into his life, yet he can’t just come out and say that he was wrong. It’s tragic on some level how much he just can’t bring himself to open himself up. But you feel like he’s trying and maybe that’s enough.

What consolation is it really that someone who has done you wrong was thinking about you the entire time?

It depends on the situation, but for me it means a lot. It’s a statement that other things in life aren’t as important and through all of stuff they did wrong, they couldn’t help but think of you. The knowledge that someone is thinking about you is comforting. It lets you know that you matter, that you mean something and that you are always with the people who love you.

Express Yourself by N.W.A.

Before creating Beats ear phones, before discovering Eminem, before revolutionizing Gangsta Rap at Death Row records, Dr. Dre was one of the boldest and most controversial rappers in America. 

Along with the late Eazy-E, Arabian Prince, DJ Yella, MC Ren and Ice Cube (yes, the same Ice Cube who is in the family comedy Are We There Yet?), Dr. Dre created the rap group N.W.A.  This group created a firestorm of controversy with the explicit language and content in their lyrics.

They rapped about their own lives and the problems they faced everyday. Mainstream American culture was simply not ready for the realism within their music. N.W.A. sparked a musical revolution still felt today not only in rap music but in all of pop music.

Most of my middle school students know Dr. Dre for his headphones. When I was growing up I knew him as producer mainly creating the background beats for Snoop Doggy Dog and Eminem. It was only recently that I discovered N.W.A.’s music and was floored by Dr. Dre’s skills on the microphone.

“Express Yourself,” the last single off of N.W.A.’s 1989 album Straight Outta Compton featured Dr. Dre rapping about the power of self-expression.



N.W.A. sampled Charles Wright & the Watts 100 Street Rhythm Band’s 1971 hit of the same name.



On top of this infectious sample Dr. Dre explodes in the beginning of the first verse:

I’m expressing with my full capabilities
And now I’m living in correctional facilities.
Cause some don’t agree with how I do this,
I get straight, meditate like Buddhist.

He goes on to call out hypocrisy with the way other people talk about drugs, and the way rappers change what they do to get on the radio. Throughout the song he has entertaining and clever similes and rhymes like “moving like a tortoise, full of rigor mortis." Like Smokey Robinson’s classic Motown lyrics, there’s a sense of fun in the rapping and the wide vocabulary on words the Dr. Dre utilizes.

While the song has a softer message the video links together the character slave driver, policeman and executioner.  N.W.A. also evokes imagery of Kennedy being shot.  All of this juxtaposed against this light-hearted song reminds us what N.W.A. is really all about.

There is freedom and joy in genuine self-expression, even if what you are expressing are darker parts of the human experience.  "Express Yourself," walks this line carefully encouraging others to be who they are while calling out the problems that keep people from being genuine.

It's amazing to see how far these artists have gone.  Dr. Dre is still around and when he hits the mic he still does it better than most of the younger guys out there right now.  There is something special about hearing him rap more than twenty years ago.  There's an energy and excitement that makes you not only want to rap along but create your own music to express yourself.  

Blame It On The Rain by Milli Vanilli

At first the story of Milli Vanilli was one of triumph. Then it became one of scandal and finally it ended in tragedy. When Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus signed on to be the faces of the pop group Milli Vanilli, they had no idea how it would change their lives.

Producer Frank Farian, after recording an pop album, felt that he needed a more marketable duo so he hired Fab and Rob. The album Girl You Know It’s True went on to be a Grammy winning success.

Then during a live performance, the track they were lip-syncing to started to skip and the truth about the record came out. Then the scandal erupted and they had to give their Grammy’s back. After being butt of jokes for years and finally being able to tell their side of the story on VH1’s Behind The Music, Milli Vanilli began work on an new album that would feature their own voice. Sadly on Arpil 2, 1998, Rob Pilatus was found dead in a hotel. His death was ruled and accidental drug and alcohol overdose.

When I think about Milli Vanilli, it always makes me sad. People overreacted. Look, I know they lied and they mislead the public, but we’re talking lip-syncing. It would be one thing it they performed on stage as classical musicians. These are pop musicians who are dancing around in a way that makes it nigh impossible for them to sing well without at least a backing track.

Getting offended or surprised by a pop singer lip-syncing, is like getting angry about the fact the McDonalds is selling you previously frozen food. Yes, Milli Vanilli took it one step further by not even singing on the original recording but in the world of music scandals (which includes murder, shootings and extortion), this is a pretty minor offense.

The lead single “Girl You Know It’s True,” is really silly and campy. It’s dated, the rap is contrived and is pretty forgettable, but the other single from their album “Blame It On The Rain” really has heart.



I came across this video of Fab performing this song live and it was really touching. After everything Fab has been through, he’s making it happen on stage. These guys were put through such a ridiculous media storm and all they were doing was trying to entertain people.

There’s really not a more perfect song than “Blame It On The Rain,” to reflect about the legacy of Milli Vanilli. Sometimes focusing on who’s to blame isn’t the important thing. Did Fab and Rob deserve to be punished for what they did? I’m not sure, but they did get punished. I’m not saying that we should take blame for Rob’s death, but our reaction couldn’t have helped.

The reason we look for blame is to provide us a way to move forward. Sometimes we can do this without beating ourselves up or punishing someone else. No, that’s not a cop-out, sometimes it’s the best thing to do, because mistakes lie with the people who make them whether or not we can see that clearly.